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And the winners are…

Meet eight-year old Isla and seven-year old Fred. They are at the same time everyday children who love everyday things and children who are busy dreaming up the next generation of board games.

As part of the 2015 Toy Fair, Britain’s biggest toy and games show held at London’s Olympia in January, we had the privilege of celebrating Isla and Fred’s achievement.

A girl of shapes and symmetry
Isla was awarded Young Games Inventor 2014 (Judges’ Award) for her game HexaCollect - a game involving navigating around a board to collect multi-coloured hexagon flowers.

A big fan of both our BrainBox and board game range, Isla noticed there were few games with hexagons – something she wanted to fix.

“She’s always liked shapes and symmetry,” recalls Mum, Catherine. “As a family, we’ve always played board games. In fact, Isla recently chose to do a school workbook exercise all about board games. So when I heard about The Young Games Inventor competition, I knew it was for her!”

During her day at Toy Fair, a beaming Isla collected her mocked-up game from The Green Board Games Company Founder, Gary Wyatt. “I was very impressed by the layers of the game,” Gary explains. “Isla had really thought through how the game would work, making it both playable and challenging.”

The boy who loves to climb
Fred was awarded The Young Games Inventor 2014 (People’s Choice) after winning a public vote for his game, Summit Up – a maths challenge game where players climb up a mountain by completing basic arithmetic.

Fred spent his summer holiday thinking up, perfecting, and creating his board game – which he and his Mum created on a large sheet of cardboard in the garden on a sunny day in August.

“Last year, Fred’s favourite subject was Maths and we had just climbed up Kinder Scout in Derbyshire – so that was the inspiration behind Summit Up,” recalls Mum, Katherine. “He recently heard about the climbers who managed to scale ‘Capitan’ (in Yellowstone National Park) and he said to me, ‘I want to do that when I’m older!’”

A quietly self-assured Fred collected his mocked-up game from Gary Wyatt at Toy Fair. “It’s great that Fred wanted to invent a simple game that makes arithmetic fun,” Gary commented. Long may his love of games and learning continue!”

As Isla and Fred return home with their winnings – which include their own height in BrainBox games – we hope their achievements will inspire even more children around the country to dream up fun and clever board games of the future.